1. A General Background to Korean Traditional Music
It would be helpful to consider a tonal quality in order to understand musical sound. Musical tone is generally classified into four different inseparable elements such as pitch, duration, intensity and tone colour or timbre. Different qualities results in different outcomes and different tonal colours produce different music. Tonal quality (timbre) is affected by a material used in a certain instrument or by an individual vocal cord that has its own characteristics. For instance, no two instruments are the same in their vocal qualities: by the same token no two instruments are the same in their timbres.
Disticntions in the history of Western music were largely made in two major trends that are Classicism and Romanticism. These two contrastive musical traditions can be traced back to the ancient Greek archetypical dualism, the Apollonian and Dionysian cults respectively, whose musics were accompanied by the characteristic instruments, a lyre called the kithara (five -or eleven - stringed instrument) and a double-pipe reed called the aulos respectively. Classicism embodies formality, objectivity, clarity and balance which is associated with the Apollonian music, whereas music of the Romantic era denotes emotion, subjectivity, passion, etc. In this respect, I can be asked what made these two musical concept distinctive. It might have been caused by a variety of musical elements and practices constructing musical sounds. However, it was the traits of these two instruments mentioned above that distinguish one kind of music from another one. The stringed kithara produced a clear tone whereas the aulos was once prohibited from public performances because of its sensational mood created by their nature.
Musical tone plays an important role not only in music but in the emotional and spiritual aspects of human life. Its difference derives from different materials used in musical instruments which are embodied by a player's bodily movement in order to make a particular sound. In this respect, it
is crucial to understand musical instruments in terms of what kinds of material are employed in constructing the musical instruments. One of the characteristic features of Korean instrument is that they are largely made of natural materials, such as bamboo, silk, gourd, clay, and so forth, although a type of metal or brass is used in a certain part of the instruments, in particular a brass instrument. For instruments, such as the k omun'go, kayagum, haegum, taegum, p'iri and so forth, comprise the materials derived from physical environments : resonant boxes are made of wood, even screws are made of wood. In the case of the woodwind instrument, a taeg m is made of bamboo so that its pitches depend more or less on the state of sounds produced by wooden instruments are warmer and softer than those produced by material. Because wood is softer and more flexible than metal, the sounds produced by metallic instruments. It is also important not to lose the sight that each material possesses its own nature of producing a unique sound, and this provides its own functions in musical performances. However, a comparison can be made one material with another in terms of its resultant sound from the Korean point of view. Nonmetallic materials, in general, produce sounds that express warm and emotional music, whereas metallic ones produce a sound that express the "clooler" nature of the rational mind of music. There have been some attempts to substituting its strings to metallic materials in order to accommodate the modern environments since the 1960s, but this adaptation failed to be recognised. This distinction can be derived from the contrastive aspects between the two cultures: rational European art music is the product of Western scientific minds, whereas Korea's emotional music is the result of its preference for natural materials.
The two materials also differ in the way they are used in making instruments. Natural plant materials require little alteration in the manufacturing while metals undergo a long process such as when steel is extracted from ore. To make a taegum, for instance, it needs to be cut a piece of bamboo down, making several holes and is ready to play music. The process of making the taegum, in fact, is not a simple cutting skill, but it requires a considerable time and a great deal of patience in order to obtain adequate materials of the instrument from natural environment. In the case of metallic instruments, the raw materials must be changed considerably in the process of analysing and synthesising the materials. The former method has a tendency to accommodates to nature or a given environment, whereas the latter tends to challenge and conquer it.
In relation to classification of musical instruments, the stringed instrument can be divided into 'bowed' instruments and 'plucked' instruments, but there is a tendency to consider only the two plucked instruments, komun'go and kayagum, as the genuine stringed instruments. Other stringed instruments such as haegum and ajaeng are treated as the wind instruments customary. This concept can be interpreted as cultural and aesthetic views of Korean people. In traditional society, plucked string instruments were favoured for the "margin" or "empty space", which is known as a "rest", they conveyed. A "musical silence" created by the plucked string instruments can bring a tremendously huge effect, especially in slow solo performances, on listeners. In contrast, bowed string instruments create a continuous sound produced by a bow. The other aspect is that a group of the elite used to prefer especially the komun'go, which is associated with a male instrument, historically and culturally. The reason for placing the komun'go on a high position is based on its values of "musical space" which corresponds to a long rest and echo. In fact, this can be analogue to a Korean traditional painting which is a contrast between black and white with a sparing on a canvas. In contrast, a Western painting is filled with details on a canvas. This reflects particular cultural views on artistic taste.
It is not easy to understand artistic or cultural trends without fully understanding a philosophical background which produces them. This is true particularly for Korean ritual music. One of the most important concept underlying traditional Korean art theory is "umyang ohaengsol [literally the Yin-Yang principle and the Five Elements]". The twelve notes within one octave were classified by the Yin-Yang principle such as six "um" (yin) and six "yang" (yang) and this corresponds to the twelve months. The five main musical sounds - kung, sang, kak, ch'i and wu -were compared to the Five Element ("ohaeng") which consists of earth, metal, wood, fire and water respectively. They also correspond to the five cardinal colours, yellow, white, green, red and black respectively; the "five tastes", sweet, sour, bitter, hot, salty The "five virtues", truth, beauty, courtesy, and wisdom; and the "five vital" organs of the human body. According to historical documents form the Shilla period, for instance, it is said that the kayagum was modeled after a Chinese equivalent instrument. Its sound box is rounded, symbolisng the heaven. Its flat bottom symbolises the earth, the twelve strings the months, and the hole in the bottom the six directions - north, south, east, west, up and down. The construction of the instrument was clearly linked to philosophical beliefs.
In ritual ceremonies, two instruments were used: the ch'uk and o . Presumably they are one of the representative examples of the Yin-Yang principle applied to Korean instruments. The ch'uk is a percussion instrument made of wood and shaped like a mortar. It is always painted blue and placed on the east side of any musical ensemble, the direction from which the sun rises. The o is also a wooden percussion instrument, but it is shaped like a tiger on a box. It is painted white and placed to the west, the direction from which the sun sets. In performance, the ch'uk is played at the beginning, the o at the end. The ritual musics begin with the ch'uk repeating a melody three times. The music ends with the o repeating the same melody three times. The both instruments are played only once. The combination of philosophy and musical performance shows that it is important for people to understand their cultural and historical contexts where these kinds of music are produced and performed as a totality.
The differences of musical pieces can also be found in Korean vocal music, dividing it into two classifications - native/folk songs and court/classical songs. "P'ansori is one of the representative native songs, whereas Sijo, Kagok and Kasa belong to classical vocal music. Both genres of the vocal music reveal vast differences in methods of vocalisation. P'ansori maximises use of the natural voice while classical songs are performed in the use of a falsetto. Historically, P'ansori has entertainers called "Namsadangpae" through history. In contrast, classical songs were loved by intellects and the ruling class. Naturally P'ansori is filled with the emotions of the vernacular language while performances of P'ansori reveal the feelings of the ordinary people. One of the main characteristics of commoners is frankness and thus the rejection of hypocrisy. The ruling class, on the other hand, was reluctant to show their emotion, particularly during the Choson dynasty when confucianism ruled